Flinging Thoughts

In between my schooling, my writing and attending to my poor neglected Internet business I’ve been scouting locations in Second Life for use with upcoming machinima projects.

Like some accidental tourist, I’m finding very beautiful architecture and captivating city layouts everywhere I travel, all of which are enhanced by the atmosphere created by the WindLight client. I’ve been taking so many screen captures I feel like I should use a few prims to make a 35mm camera to hang around my avatar’s neck and create an outfit of Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, black socks and penny loafers. For the most part the people I’ve met during my travels and while learning how the in-world turns have been very kind and helpful.

I’ve posted some of my photography to my Website Graffiti gallery. There will be more when I have the time.

Besides building with both sculpted and standard primitives, I’ve also been using QAvimator to make all kinds of avatar animations; just wish there were more possibilities for controlling an avatar’s lip and mouth movements while in-world (it reminds me of the same limitation I was disappointed with when using Poser back in the late nineties).

After making some test runs, I’m now very confident that I’ll be able to make Moviestorm and SL blend together convincingly - even when it comes to matching moving camera shots; the things one program doesn’t yet do well, the other does quite nicely.

If you find yourself in SL, please know you’re welcome to stop by and see the digs I’ve set up. Here’s the slurl. Don’t forget to jump into the big green box.

Click To Play

After a few months of absence, I recently made a return trip into Second Life using the WindLight client. I could not believe how beautiful the landscape is with the new client. I thought I’d spend a few hours playing with it and that would be it. I got hooked. The next day I went back in and started burning up my hard drive space with in-world captures. This is the result:

A Second Life music video as seen through the eyes of the WindLight client and featuring a song “From Agnes, Flowers” I wrote back in 2005 for my mom. I hope you watch and enjoy. Please let me know what you think.

Moviestorm commissioned Fling Films to breakout the ending credits scene from Morning Run Amok and give it its own place in the spotlight. This is the result which highlights some of the items and animations from Moviestorm’s two new Domestic Drama expansion packs.

CJ Ambrosia returns in his role as YouTube’s larger-than-life HarryPackage88, the vid-prolific complainer dude.

Click To Play

The saga gets a little weirder: just after uploading my animation entitled “The Internet, You Am A Winners!” to the Atom Films site I received a letter from yourfriend@atomfilms.com stating I had violated their terms of service. I replied with the following:

Dear User Abuse Manager,

It would be nice to know exactly what “abuse” my movie committed. I’ve seen some pretty offensive stuff right on your home page compared to this, so I’m baffled as to why it got rejected. I don’t expect to hear from anyone at Atom Films any further, but it would be civil of you to explain your decision. That way I could explain it in better detail on my blog. Wouldn’t want to have anyone commit a similar atrocity in the future.

I own every part of this movie’s intellectual property: music, writing, 3d animations, so if that is your concern, I would appreciate another look.

Frank L. Fox
Fling Films

So now I am left scratching my head after receiving the following email today from “my friend” (yourfriend@atomfilms.com):

——————-
Dear Filmmaker,

Thank you for submitting “The Internet, You Am A Winners!” to
 AtomFilms.  We know how much hard work and energy goes into making a film and we
 appreciate you wanting to share your vision with our audience.
  Unfortunately, your film does not quite fit our current needs.

Thanks again for thinking of us and please, send more of your movies to
 AtomFilms!  We’d love to see them.

Best regards,
AtomFilms Submissions

***We’re sorry, but due to the volume of submissions we’re not able
 to respond to questions about why your film wasn’t selected.***
——————-

So which is it: doesn’t fit their needs or violates their terms of service?

I hesitate calling “my friend” at Atom Films a coward, but sending me a polite rejection letter after banning my movie outright for bigotry or theft or porn or whatever violations they accused me of seems a bit disingenuous.

I’m not angry that “The Internet, You Am A Winners!” was rejected on the grounds that it’s not good enough to be on Atom Films and playing next to “Possum Death Spree.” It’s a crap shoot whenever you submit your stuff for review anywhere. I’ve long since given up on trying to figure out why any reviewer likes one thing and hates another. But to accuse me of being a thief, peddling porn or being a bigot one day and then telling me you’d love for me to upload my next movie, is altogether baffling and insulting!

Needless to say I won’t be volunteering to get that treatment again.

After some of the stuff I’ve seen on Atom Films this rejection letter comes as a bit of a surprise:

Hello FlingFilms,

We have found that your clip violates one or more provisions of Section
 4 of our Terms of Service, which states that users may not:

 create a user name or screen name or upload to, distribute
 through or otherwise publish through the Site any Materials which are
 indecent, libelous, defamatory, obscene, threatening, invasive of privacy or
 publicity rights, abusive, illegal, harassing, contain expressions of
 hatred, bigotry, racism or pornography, or are otherwise objectionable,
 or that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, violate the
 rights of any party or violate any law.”

Moreover, per our Terms of Service we reserve the right to reject clips
 at our sole discretion.  If you believe that we made an error, please
 contact us for further clarification or review of your clip.  We
 reserve the right to request further documentation prior to approving any
 clips.

Regards,

User Abuse Manager, Atom Uploads
Atom Entertainment, Inc.

I’ve now been called a bigot by Atom Films for submitting “The Internet, You Am A Winners!” Oh well. I guess the fear of offending an imaginary segment of the audience is now what the web.2 is all about.

My questions: is the movie bigoted? and if you think so, please tell me who I have abused or been bigoted toward. I ask here instead of at Atom Films because I would never expect a reply from them… other than another form letter.

You might consider this short to be a bit mean. If so, chalk it up to my week-long bad mood brought on by the wildfires that have destroyed so many nearby homes — along with the forest I’ve been in love with for over fifteen years.

I needed a quick pick me up, and this guy was handy. There’s a little bit of him in all of us. And if you don’t get any of the jokes, you just might have a little more than most.

The Internet, You Am A Winners - Click here for another funny movie.

I’ve finally got around to posting my one minute video for the UN organization’s StandAgainstPoverty.org campaign. I directed and recorded this footage entirely in Moviestorm and wrote the music score.

Your comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Morning Run Amok - For more amazing video clips, click here

Thank you for viewing Morning Run Amok! I am so proud of the work everyone put into this project. Your comments here would be appreciated.

There are now 25 finalists in the running for the top prize at Filminute’s One-minute Film Festival. The viewers are voting on them all this month. I didn’t see any machinima among them; hadn’t heard of there being many, or any for that matter.

I think there are some really entertaining entries in the fest. After watching some of them I found a few which caught my eye:

“Matchmaker” is beautiful, albeit confusing.
“Fun Time” is interesting for its non-linear story line. There’s a beginning, middle and ending, just not precisely in that order.
“Graham” is pretty cool. That gritty style of animation instantly caught my eye. I could tell the writer probably came up with the story idea during a particularly trying workday; lots of intensity in that mood. The protagonist reminded me of Beavis from Beavis & Butthead fame, but only after his temper exploded.
“Dave Foley and Fans” had me laughing hard. But, I’ve been an ardent fan of Kids in the Hall from the very beginning. His disarming sense of humor shows through well in this little piece.
“Acrophobia” is lovely! I don’t know what he’s saying, but I don’t care and can get the gist of it anyway. The wind-blown effect at the end was a nice payoff.
“Celebrate” is creepy in a beautiful sort of way. Nice video FX.

I’m reserving my vote until I finish watching the whole list. I just wanted to put down these thoughts now while I’m tossing them around in my head.

It amazes me how much someone can get across in a minute. I’m always impressed by the people who overcome the adversity of possessing a native tongue that is not well used in the world. They seem to become very adept at creating stories able to transcend any spoken or written language.

I must admit that I had forgotten about the festival until tonight when I came up with my own idea for a one minute movie. I tracked down the site only to find that, as usual, another one of my ideas is a day(s) late and dollar short. I think I’ll develop it anyway. There’s always next year.

I finally got around to adding music functionality to the Fling Films web site. My original compositions used in some of my films can be listened to in their entirety. The equipment I have is old and some of the songs were recorded long ago, but there they are - warts and all.

I am currently in a real studio with real musicians working on three original songs (lyrics, vocals, the whole shebang) I plan to make animated videos for. There’s always time for one more project; can I get an amen brother?

If the mood strikes you, I would welcome your thoughts and comments on the instrumentals I have posted.